


Small Comforts

by nxrtherndxwnpour (alexwestiel)



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: I wrote this on a whim, M/M, Swearing, brendon being an asshole, ryan being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexwestiel/pseuds/nxrtherndxwnpour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan Ross is a washed up celebrity, without ever experiencing fame. He lives with his stalker, and avoids discussing his past with anyone. All this changes when a certain famous ex calls in the small hours of the morning. <br/>I'm bad at summaries. Sue me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Ryan tries to say as little as possible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan is tired, and generally pissed off.   
> He could do without this.

The moonlight filters through the Venetian blinds, illuminating the sitting room in all its eclectic glory. The news is on, something about another outbreak without a vaccine, but neither of us are even vaguely interested. We’re both too busy occupying our own heads, filled with the worries that only come about this late, when the stars might as well be thousands of judging eyes.  
She’s lying on the floor, her short limbs spread across the carpet. Each one covered in bruises I’m forbidden to ask about, even if she knows the position of every single scar on my body, and exactly how I ended up with each one. She’s my token pseudo-housemate slash runaway slash stalker. But she introduced herself as Lauren from across town who needed a place for the night. I had stupidly let her in and she’s barely left the house - my house - in a month. I mean, it’s annoying, sure, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone around.  
"So, you and Brendon, you keep in touch much anymore?" Lauren asks, rolling onto her back and looking at me upside down. I probably look even more pitiful this way up, like a depressed vampire, wanting death but not being fortunate enough to receive it.  
I feel my hands grip my thigh a little tighter, a reflex to the sound of his name, "Clearly not. we both decided it was best for the both of us if we didn't speak." I hope this will shut her up, and let her know that I am in no mood to discuss my past relationships at this hour (or any hour, to be honest).  
She takes a chip out of the bag, and chews it too loudly. The sound of it grinding against her teeth is enough to make me shudder. "It's been two whole years, are you not tempted to, ya know," she moves her hands the way an amateur actor would, illustrating her point by making redundant spirals with her ungraceful fingers, "re-kindle it?"  
"No." I stand up and got a beer from the fridge I barely keep stocked, and sit down at the table, indicating that the conversation is well and truly over.  
Incapable of taking a hint, she wanders over and sits opposite me, leaving her cardigan, the lone piece of evidence that she'd been laying there apart from the open bag of chips, strewn across the wooden floor. "Come on, you haven't even thought about it once?"  
"No." I lie. Of course I’ve thought about it. More than once in fact. Especially when the sky is bright, and there’s that lazy kind of heat in the air. Or when one of our songs -his songs- is played on the radio, transporting me to whenever and wherever I wrote it. But I’ve never actually contacted him, like he'd want to hear from me. He’s too famous now, and I’m just a washed up celebrity who never got his chance at fame.  
She groans, and I take another mouthful of beer and put the bottle down, the ring-shaped stain joining the countless others on the badly varnished pine. I was never one to use coasters or place-mats or whatever, and it used to be a somewhat endearing quality. Now it’s just another bad habit, and one I need to break.  
"Can I have one?" she asks, looking at the bottle that was now resting on the table, three quarters of it left. She twirls a strand of her hair around her fingers, as if she’s trying to flirt with me or something.  
"No." I rub the back of my neck, and tug slightly at the short tendrils of hair that curled about my nape. I need a haircut.  
"Why not?" she’s getting pissed off now, folding her arms across her 'annoyingly flat' chest and pursing her lips.  
"You're too young, and I don't even trust you with caffeine yet, let alone alcohol." comes my response, along with another drink and another glance at the clock. It’s gone 2am now, and neither of us are tired.  
"I’m nineteen." she mumbles, looking up at me through her fringe.  
"My point stands. Too young. Go somewhere else to underage drink, just not here. Come back in a couple years, and then I’ll let you have one. How's that sound?" I put the bottle back down and crack my knuckles, the sound of the fluid bubble popping in my joint or whatever latching me onto reality, a kind of auditory anchor.  
"It sounds like fuck you, Ryan Ross. I'm going to bed. You're a sack of dog shit." She picks her cardigan up off the floor and leaves, making a point of slamming the door. I roll my eyes at her dramatic charade of maturity, and the guy next door bangs on the wall, woken from his slumber by the sound of the door hitting the frame hard enough to shake the clock almost off the wall. She'll still be here in the morning. Unless her parents come to get her, which they won’t. And right now, I can’t say I blame them.  
I stand up, my knees clicking when I straighten them. I pad through to the spare room, because I just know Lauren will be in my bed, just to fucking spite me. I don't care enough to be angry, I just feel a twinge of irritation at the thought of her asleep in my sheets, rolling around on my mattress, her hair all over my pillows.  
I have to get out of here. Alone. No strings attached. Without any moody teenagers hanging off my ankles, trying to get me to agree to reunite with a man who I know I should hate, but can never quite bring myself to despise completely. I won't go though, and I know this as I lay down on top of the covers, the summer night and its humidity enough of a blanket for me.


	2. In which Ryan gets an unwelcome phonecall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its late and Ryan doesn't need this.   
> Doesn't stop it from happening though.

I sleep for an hour. It’s long enough in my books, and besides, I don’t sleep much anyway, let alone on a bed that isn’t technically my own. It's never been easy for me to sleep, especially not after Brendon. However much I resent him for everything he did to me, he was my safe place, my little haven.   
I stretch and go to the bathroom, and stare at my reflection. I look ill, and a little too much stubble has appeared on my chin without me noticing. I remember the way Brendon would touch my face, with that fucking grin he only did around me. I quickly look away before the pit in my stomach threatens to swallow me whole.  
Trying to remember the reasons I hate him is easiest at this time of night. He plays my songs, my songs, and pretends they’re his, the little prick. By the end, he was pretty much the devil incarnate, with his arrogance and his moods and his smoking. I hate, hate, hate him for everything he did, everything he said and everything he tried (and still tries) to deny.   
A small, minuscule part of me wants him back. He'd know what to do about Lauren, and what to do about my drinking. If he was here I’d probably cut my hair, and start laughing genuinely again. But that thought is drowned in memories of every single time he fucked me over, and I don’t want him back at all anymore.  
I sigh and open the mirrored cabinet, picking up one of the little orange bottles containing my sleeping pills -"Don't take more than one at a time, Mr Ross, there could be serious side effects, and we don't want that now, do we?" The jolly pharmacist had smiled jovially. I had not- putting a capsule into my mouth, I take a drink of water before swallowing and heading back to bed, knowing that its more than likely that I’ll be back here in an hour or two, after a dreamless sleep.  
Instead, I’m rudely awoken fifteen fucking minutes after falling asleep by the phone ringing. Not wanting Lauren to wake and pick up before me, I laboriously rise and walk toward it, each incessant ring sounding more foreboding than the last. I pick it up, and a familiar voice on the other end makes me want to curl up and die. It’s Brendon fuckfuckfucking Urie.  
"Ryan..." his speech is slurred slightly, he’s clearly drunk, this call is probably his old friend Jack Daniels giving him undeserved confidence, and an idea that this call is even slightly welcome. I hear the familiar yet alien tones of my own voice in the background, singing one of my songs about the moon.  
“What do you want?” I reply, my voice staying as monotone as I can possibly keep it. But still, a small quiver is audible, because of course it fucking is.  
“A…chat…in person. I…miss you.” I nearly hang up the phone then and there, how dare he. Perhaps I should hang up the phone, I mean, I still could. Nothing is stopping me. But of course I don’t, because I need to listen to his voice, pining for me. Something sick inside me wants to hear him.  
“Fuck off.” I stammer, my mind going into autopilot, saying the things I need to say in order to end this. “You miss me, do you? That’s nice. Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you ruined my fucking life. Before you stole my songs and dressed them up in a way they shouldn’t have been. Before you gave the songs I wrote false meaning and pretended the lyrics meant different things.”  
There’s a silence from his end of the line, and with it, a hope that he’s gone. But alas, his voice comes down the phone, and I can picture him sitting wherever he’s calling from, probably on the floor, with the bottle in his hand, curled around the phone, close to tears. “I miss you, and the way you used to,” he hiccups and I almost gag, “smile at me, and the way you used to hold me… I miss your presence…I’m sorry.”  
I stare at a fixed point in the middle distance, trying to keep myself upright and stable. I crack my knuckles against my leg, another anchor. “Good for you. Go find someone else to listen to your shit. I’m not interested.” I lie again. Because I am interested. I’ve missed his voice, not that I’m about to admit it or anything. I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s won.  
“But you haven’t hung up yet…please don’t hang up.” He sounds sad, profoundly so. A part of me feels a little sorry for him, the rest of me doesn’t. The rest of me wants him to spend the rest of his days like this, regretting what he did.  
“I’ve only stayed on this long out of a misplaced respect for what we had and what you used to be. Had and used being the operative words.” I sit down, still holding the phone to my ear despite the whole room spinning and making me feel even more nauseous.   
“I remember lying with you, and running away from everything all the time. Don’t you miss that?” He slurs. I remember, and my chest is hollow, a cavern of shattered dreams.   
“No.” I lied. I’m not about to show him that I was in any way sentimental about the whole relationship-friendship whatever the fuck. He doesn’t deserve me at all.  
“When we moved into our first apartment, we didn’t eat anything else except… fuckin tacos and cereal.” He laughs, and even with the crappy reception, I can hear how empty and full of tears it is. I don’t scold myself for feeling sorry for him now.  
“It’s nearly 4am Brendon. Go to bed.” I can’t help but slip a caring tone into my voice at this point. However much I hated him, he was still the man who had kissed me so tenderly on that summer morning as we lay beside each other, limbs intertwined.  
“Not until you agree to meet… up.” He mumbles, his mouth clearly too close to the receiver. The sound of his voice this close to my ear makes me think of how he probably whispered into the ears of everyone else he had on the side. Arrogant cheating prick. But then again, who has time to be faithful these days? We were just part of the ‘commitment is for assholes in big suits’ line of thinking. It’s not like I didn’t do my fair share of sleeping around, but for some reason his betrayal (at least it felt like betrayal) stung the most, “I just have to see you again, like old times. We don’t even have to talk for too long, I…promise”  
“Fine.” The caring tone is gone and he’s pissing me off again now. “Where and when?”   
“At my house tomorrow night. 8pm sharp…don’t be late” He mumbled, followed by a muffled address I had to ask him to repeat several times, just to be sure.  
I hung up without saying goodbye and padded back to the bathroom, already regretting my decision more than I thought was possible.


	3. In which Ryan has second thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan can't believe he agreed to this. It's utter bullshit.

I don’t sleep for the rest of the night, and I’ve eaten my small breakfast of an apple and a glass of orange juice (vodka included) when Lauren walks down the stairs, hair dishevelled, nude except her bathrobe. I don’t care. I lost any interest I would’ve had in her once she revealed she knew everything about my life.   
We’ve become somewhat reluctant friends, her and I. I mean, she puts up with my self-hatred and I put up with her somewhat fluctuating moods. I can’t help feeling like I’ve disappointed her though. She expected silk and she got shitty polyester, itchy and artificial. I’m not the man she saw through my window, and through the lenses of her polaroid cameras. I am more broken than I seem, and no amount of painting over the cracks will hide that fact anymore. I am turning into my father, no matter how I try and cover it up. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, as the old saying goes.  
“Morning.” She murmurs, going to the sink and getting a glass of water. “He called last night, didn’t he?”   
A little taken aback, I mumble a yes and lean against the counter, ankles crossed. I forgot that she had a tendency to listen in on my late night phone calls.  
“Are you going tonight then?” she says, like going to see an ex friend-lover-whatever was just one of those thing everyone does on the regular, and not something worth another thought. She’s making herself cereal. It’s the same cereal Brendon bought for a good month while we were living together for the first time.  
“Fuck me if I know.” I sigh, taking another sip of my juice, and feeling the alcohol settling in my stomach uncomfortably, a guilty conscience.   
“I think you should. It’ll get him off your mind, you can have closure, or whatever. It’s up to you.” She leans against the counter opposite mine and starts eating the cereal, the bright colours disappearing into her mouth. Anyone casually observing us would think we’re just fine and dandy, a picket-fence dream. Just another blip in suburbia. I wish we were. I wish it was that simple.  
“That’s the problem. He always gives me more questions than he answers. That’s how he works.” I run my hand through my hair, the curls unruly and untamed. As with everything else in my life, I don’t care enough to get rid of them. They’re just as much a part of me as the constant state of slightly-pissed I’m always in is. They have to stay so I can be me, I guess.   
I miss the times when this kind of shit didn’t matter. When I could cut my hair without the worry that a part of my soul would somehow be lost along with the unruly mane. When I could go a whole day, even a whole fucking hour, without having something as a pick-me-up. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. It was probably in Brendon’s arms. Or in his too-big t-shirt.   
“Just ignore everything he says.” Lauren says, jerking me abruptly back into reality, “Block the guy out.”   
“I can-I can’t just block him out. He’s someone you don’t block out. It’s impossible, illogical.”   
“Why? You do it with me. At least, I think you do.”   
I nod, and she doesn’t take offence. She knows as well as anyone; I am never exactly in the position to hang onto every word of any conversation.   
“See, you can do it. I believe in you. You never know, you might end up enjoying yourself.” She carries on eating the cereal, and I notice another bruise on her lower thigh. I don’t mention it, because she doesn’t mention the fact that even more liquor has appeared in my room.   
I scoff, knowing I’ll probably just get pissed and avoid all of his questions until it’s time for me to leave. She knows it too, and I can see it in the way she looks at me, all pitying. Like I’m some kind of dead dog left at the side of the fucking road.   
“You look like shit, by the way. Shave or something before you go. You look like you’re fucking homeless or something. And not in the good way,” I clearly look confused, so she elaborates, “a good homeless look is like a little dishevelled, and a bit edgy. Like you know you’re homeless but you don’t give a shit. You just look desperate.”   
I flip her the middle finger, “thanks for that, Mrs Versace. Go fuck yourself.”   
She smiles, sickly sweet and gives me the same gesture, winking.  
I push myself off the counter and walk to the bathroom, the alcohol in my system making it more a test of my balance than anything. I’m already pissed, and it’s what, 9am? Of course it is. I am a mirror image of what I want to be, and there is nothing I can do now. Oh well. Life goes on.  
I splash my face with cold water and regard my face. No change since last night that I can report on. My eyes are still sunken, my cheeks following their lead. I still have those bags, and those worry lines. I still look like the mess I am. I sigh and crack my knuckles again, not that I have anything to anchor myself to. I am the lone boat out in this storm, and none of my radio signals are being responded to.  
The day passes uneventfully, with me drinking and Lauren wearing barely anything and snooping around in my things. She’s free to, it’s not like my secrets are exactly secrets anymore. They’re being played everywhere, backed by whatever Brendon decided to put in there. All my real secrets are buried so deep within me that I barely know they’re there sometimes. A lot of the time.   
Its suddenly 5pm, and Lauren is tugging on my arm, waking me from a blank sleep. She’s saying something about shaving. I don’t care enough to resist. I never care enough anymore.  
She’s going on and on about some crap she found in a draw somewhere, some polaroid prints or whatever. I feel like saying something, but I also don’t. The meeting with Brendon is all I can think about at the moment.   
She shaves me, and makes sure I don’t get cut. It’s like she’s my fucking carer or something. I’m the one keeping a roof over her head, she should be the one needing care. I’m grateful for it nevertheless, and manage a weak smile in her general direction. I look less like the ‘bad kind of homeless’ now apparently.   
“I found a shirt, it’s a nice one. You should wear it tonight.” She says, weirdly brightly. She’s never like this normally. I preoccupy my mind with Brendon, and how badly I predict tonight is going to go.   
I’m being pulled – no, dragged – up the stairs before I know it. Before me lays an outfit of sorts. The kind I would’ve worn two years ago. The skinny jeans, the white shirt with small detailing at the collar and cuffs, the brown brogues I bought on a whim to look grown up.   
“Thoughts?” She grins and points toward the clothes. I look at her, watch her unbridled enthusiasm, her brazen excitement, and I smile. Genuinely. Like I haven’t in months.  
“They’ll do.” I pull her into a one-armed hug, and realise she’s wearing my cologne. I don’t mention it. “Thanks, Lauren.”  
She grins wider than I thought possible. “You’re welcome, Mr Ross.” She practically whispers, blushing a bright red. She can probably smell the alcohol on my breath, but she doesn’t mention it. “I’ll leave you to change.”  
I wait for her to leave, and strip off. I regard myself in the mirror, feel self-conscious in my under-weight over-tall frame. I look like a ghost. The tattoos on my wrists stand out more than they did before, due to my skin losing that certain glow one gets when exposed to Brendon Urie for a long period of time.   
I sigh and walk to the clothes laid on my bed, and begin to dress. Socks first, then work my way up, just like I always do. Looking at myself in the mirror, I begin to see how I could feign normalcy. This whole thing, it’s all a show of amateur dramatics, and I am in the lead role. Its nearly time for the curtain to rise.


End file.
